Gulf of Mexico Maps and Data

Recently the New Orleans office of the National Weather Service hosted an Open House event.  We got to see a weather balloon launched (video), meet a famous female astronaut and see the new emergency trailer.  Always a teacher and always on the hunt for curriculum ideas, I was excited when the staff shared their new interactive web portal.  They've converted all the old maps and made room for new data.  According to them, they'll have lots of data in multiple formats for us map nerds to enjoy.


Check out the interactive mapper here: http://gulfatlas.noaa.gov/


You might enjoy some other data sources associated with weather, NOAA and NWS.

Teachable, Mappable Moments: Weather

Although weather can pose some challenging moments, I'm struck with the idea that we have not only a mappable moment but a teachable one as well.  In our recent past, the US dealt with Irene and a substantial earthquake in Virginia.  The weather keeps coming!  I live in southeast Louisiana where we're watching now TS Lee get ready to pound us with rain, rain, rain.  While the folks here make preparations for possible flooding conditions, particularly on lakes, canals and rivers, the rest of you out of harms way can look at the maps of it all. I created a map from a myriad of weather related data that's shared within www.arcgis.com.

Take the map below (at ArcGIS online: http://explorer.arcgis.com/?open=ba5a0959692b4104b0790c8ceafb8547) We can see real time warnings, wind direction, etc.
Check out many teachable, mappable data sets in the online library and make a map!


View Larger Map

Storm's a comin'! Get your data ready!

It's that time of year again! If you haven't taken advantage of their data, now's a great time to show students the progression of the storm. The National Hurricane Center has their GIS data ready to download and pull into your favorite GIS application.  Just click DOWNLOAD GIS DATA.  Whether you're using a free product like AEJEE or ArcGIS Explorer OR you're mapping with ArcGIS, MapInfo or MyWorld GIS, you can analyze the weather along with those experts on The Weather Channel!

Tropical Storm BONNIE